The Beatles Thread

1. Revolver
2. A Hard Days Night
3. The White Album
4. Rubber Soul
5. Abbey Road
6. Magical Mystery Tour
7. Sgt. Peppers
8. Help! (would be higher, but it's lows are pretty low even if it's highs are very high)
9. Let It Be

The others I heard the singles, but never immersed myself in the albums themselves.

As I've gotten older, I really grown to appreciate their early stuff, particularly A Hard Days Night. It's kind of like that period is taken for granted by people my age (and others ages) because it's "cooler" to smoke some weed and try to figure out the later stuff, but the best of their early shit rocks.

And, Good Lord, if you listen to early Beatles compared to contemporary things it was sharing the radio with? It's like it's from a completely different planet.

 

When I was a pre-schooler, my mom used to play Top 40 radio all day in between the news and the soap operas.
So I was hearing the top of the pops literally from about 1960. You got used to songs being bubbly, bouncy, perky and poppy.
There were a few that sounded different, like Del Shannon's "Runaway," with that eerie-spooky synth solo in the middle. Of course as a 3-4 year old kid, i didn't know what the hell a synthesizer was, all I knew was it sounded weird and wonderful.

When the Beatles arrived, which was for most of America with "She Loves You," everything changed.

It was actually a big deal in 1964 for people to yell "Yeah, yeah, yeah" on the radio. There was a lot of huffing and puffing over whether it was "proper."


Actually in England the run-up to Beatlemania was a bit more gradual: they started with "Love Me Do," which was really very typical for 1962 pop, shifted into higher gear with "Please Please Me" and their first album.
But none of that really made a dent in the US market.
When "She Loves You" was released in the US -- in the immediate aftermath of Nov. 22, 1963 -- the Beatles broke full force on American radio within a few weeks.

 

Strawberry Fields Forever is their best song.

And Revolver isn't all that great of an album on the whole.

 

I saw Paul in concert recently, which was pretty surreal. It also brought home to me how many of their anthems he wrote, even though John seems to be credited as the better of the two by history.

 

Being a slave to pop, I still like the early Beatles the best. Songs like "You're Going to Lose That Girl" and "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You" keep making my playlists to this day.

And I can't stand it when somebody offers the opinion that the Beatles weren't quite as good or important as history makes them out to be. They were every bit that good, and every bit that important. They changed the face of modern music in a way that was never rivaled ... by anyone.

I wish they'd stayed together forever, and it still hurts that half of them are dead.

BTW, the fifth Beatle was Harry Nilsson. Of this there can be no doubt.

I saw one of his concerts on TV a year or so ago, and it seemed to me like the voice was just about gone. Was it just a bad night for him, or is that the case?

 

The Beatles would've been a quintet had Stu Sutcliffe not fallen ill. Stu retired the "fifth Beatle" sobriquet in my mind.

 

As for fifth Beatle, I always liked the bizarre story of Jimmy Nicol, who toured with them when ringo was out sick. Plucked from obscurity, thrown into a tornado of beatlemania for a few weeks, and then back to obscurity.

 

Nah. Stu was already concentrating more on his art studies than music. He wasn't going to put in the time to really go big time. He was barely passable on bass and played with his back to the audience. He had already drifted out of the band before his fatal stroke.

 

Love The Beatles.

Despised "Come Together" the first time I heard it and hate it just as much today.

 

Anybody seen the Fab Faux? Will Lee, Jimmy Vivino and a bunch of other late night house band guys play Beatles songs. But they don't do the stupid dress up thing. They come as close to recreating the studio sounds as possible in a live show, bringing on string and brass sections when needed. One guy might sing Paul's part and play George's guitar part on one song, but sing John's part and play drums on another. Whatever it takes to match the recording.

It's a really good show. I saw them play Abbey Road in its entirety once, then finish out the show with a bunch of other favorites.

 

What was shocking to me as I became more aware of the Beatles was the sheer amount of music they produced. Together for just 10 years, produced 24 studio albums and 20 Billboard #1s. Pretty much everyone has a "favorite" Beatles song (mine is Something). Looking at other bands that have come since, I can't think of one that was so prolific in just a decade.

 

The Fab Four is another tribute group, made up, I believe, of cast members of the original Beatlemania show in the 80s-90s.
I have their Christmas CDs. Big fun.